The journey to founding the CPI Foundation was driven by CEO Tanya Wattenburg Komas “following my passions every step of the way.”
A former professor of construction industry management at California State University, Chico, Komas developed a passion for both teaching and restoring historic concrete structures. He took his students on field trips to places like Normandy Beach in France and Alcatraz Island in the California Bay Area. Combined with pride in her family’s history of military service, these passions led her to train early military veterans at Alcatraz beginning in 2010, in partnership with the National Park Service.
Scott Burghardt, the foundation’s chief operating officer with experience as a carpenter and contractor, shared those passions. “One night we were sitting with wine,” he recalls when the idea for the training program was born. One of his students was a veteran struggling with college. He and Komas thought, “What if we started working with veterans and got them into the program?”
Since then, the effort has progressed in partnerships with the Department of Defense to offer military members preparing to re-enter civilian life training in a variety of construction careers. While on active duty, they are immersed in a three-month program during the spring or fall at a national park such as Alcatraz to explore potential careers in construction.
“Our goal is to get service members employed before they finish the program,” says Komas.
Michael Farris, CPI’s director of relations, joined the foundation in 2018, bringing his varied experiences. “Tanya is a friend of my wife; one day he said, “I need someone to do insurance.” I had degrees: accounting: I was in commercial banking for a while. Concrete: He knew enough to be dangerous. So I started helping and then I said, “I’d like to do this full time.”
In addition to hands-on training, Farris and Burghardt work with participants on their resumes and making industry connections. “Many service members don’t have a realistic expectation of the value of their acquired skills,” Farris explains. “They don’t know how it can be applied to the civilian world.”
Daniel Clapp, Project Manager at SW Funk Industrial Contractors, says: “The CPI Foundation gave me the confidence and foundational knowledge to go straight from an Army Blackhawk pilot to an industrial project engineer with no prior experience in construction. I credit CPI with my smooth transition into a civilian career.”
Farris (left), Komas (second from left), Burghardt (third from left) and the CPI Foundation team help future military veterans prepare for careers in construction with hands-on training at NPS sites and through industry connections.
Photo courtesy of the CPI Foundation
Army veteran Nicholas Kolowich finished the program in the spring of 2017 and began working for concrete supplier Cemex that July. “I had been in the military for 20 years. I was an infantryman trained to get rid of enemies, not to do construction. When I interviewed Scott, I didn’t know the difference between concrete and cement.” He is now a manager of operational excellence overseeing 14 preparation plants.
Randell Iwasaki, CEO of Iwasaki Consulting Services, notes the nexus between helping service members find jobs, the nation’s infrastructure needs, and the construction talent shortage: “The program this team has developed to creating a career path for future veterans is incredible, and the fact that they get to hone their skills while caring for the infrastructure of our national parks makes this a win all around.”
The nonprofit aims to expand the internship program and “connect more military personnel with industry in a faster way,” Burghardt says.
Komas adds, “Almost a quarter of a million people leave the military every year. It’s a huge opportunity.”
